D’Antoni’s staple: leave ’em laughing

An hour before the team he pieced together gave the Spurs their first home-court loss on Thursday, Knicks general manager Glen Grunwald sat in a cubbyhole office in the visitors’ locker room and reflected on the value of self-deprecating humor.

“Did you see Mike’s press conference in L.A. today?” Grunwald asked. “It didn’t take him very long to win over the media out there, did it?”

Indeed, Mike D’Antoni, who will make his debut on the Lakers’ bench tonight and whose resignation Grunwald accepted 42 games into the 2011-12 Knicks season, is the most genuinely engaging and funny coach in the NBA since former Spurs coach Doug Moe.

Moe and D’Antoni have more in common than a love of laughing at themselves. Both paid pro basketball dues in Italy before getting on an NBA bench; both are dedicated to basketball played at the fastest pace possible.

Hired instead of Phil Jackson, D’Antoni had a lot to accomplish in his first session with L.A. reporters, who had been charmed by Jackson’s erudition, not to mention his success as Lakers coach.

Someone gave him good advice, so before addressing the throng at his introductory news conference, D’Antoni phoned Los Angeles Times columnist T.J. Simers, the most caustic of critics in L.A.

He managed to win over the full-time curmudgeon, at least temporarily.

“Here I am, the Welcome Wagon, the first media guy in Los Angeles talking to Mike D’Antoni, and he’s not quitting,” Simers wrote. “I thought I’d be genuflecting in front of the Zen Master again, but by the time I finished with D’Antoni, I’m thinking, ‘Phil Who?’?”

D’Antoni knows Simers and the rest of the media, local and otherwise, will hold him to an impossible standard. Anything short of the 17th NBA title in franchise history is failure.

Somehow, he still believes he’s the luckiest coach in basketball because he gets to coach Steve Nash for a second time.

He counts his blessings, even though Nash’s broken leg will need a while longer to heal.

“I’m 61 years old and put on tennis shoes to go to work,” he told those gathered at his Thursday news conference. “Are you kidding me?”

He’s not worried that he can’t get a fair shake from Lakers fans who chanted ‘We Want Phil’ during the two games the Lakers played post-Mike Brown and pre-D’Antoni.

“If we win a championship, I’ll get a fair shake,” he said. “I’ve got good friends who are Lakers fans, and they’re disappointed I got the job, too.”

Though his Suns were fierce Lakers rivals during his “Seven Seconds or Less” seasons in Phoenix, he made sure to remind the L.A. media of his roots.

“I grew up in West Virginia in the ’60s,” he said, understanding there was no need to explain that West Virginian Jerry West was a Lakers star then. “Guess who I rooted for?”

For all his charm Thursday, D’Antoni had to face some tough questions, and gave honest answers.

Wasn’t his commitment to a fast pace and small ball exposed by the Spurs in both the 2005 and 2007 playoffs, when Phoenix had the home-court advantage?

“San Antonio beat us with small ball,” D’Antoni said. “(Robert) Horry, out at the 3-point line, and you know what? They were better than we were.”

D’Antoni swears the Lakers’ roster can adapt quickly to the style he prefers but knows the learning curve will be a lot shallower when Nash’s broken leg heals.